1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a flexible optical fiber coupling for a variety of coupling housings.
2. Related Art
Mechanical optical fiber connectors for the telecommunications industry are known. For example, LC, ST, FC, and SC optical connectors are widely used in premise and central office telecommunications applications.
Many optical fiber connector systems are designed as two plugs and a coupling in between. In a typical single contact configuration such as the SC connector, each plug has a cylindrical ferrule which precisely locates the end of a fiber. Conventionally, two SC plugs are mated in a coupling which includes an alignment sleeve and latching features. When the plugs are inserted into the coupling, the alignment sleeve aligns the ferrules, holding the fibers in a precisely axially aligned orientation such that optical signals move efficiently from the fiber of the first SC connector to the fiber of the second SC connector. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,272.
Conventional couplings are configured as in-line couplings (see e.g., coupling 5 of FIG. 1). Also, jumper cables are made with a plug on each end. In some cases the two ends of a jumper cable may both be plugged into couplings in the same housing such as a patch panel. Some of these assemblies are made in a loopback configuration for use in testing optical systems with duplex couplings. In addition, fan out assemblies exist which have a multiple fiber plug on one end of a group of fibers and a number of discrete connectors on the other fiber ends. Some of these make use of sockets on the discrete fiber ends.
In existing buildings, such as homes, apartment buildings and office buildings, the space available to install new fiber interface devices is limited. For many restricted-space applications, such as with wall boxes and outlets, the length of connections made with conventional in-line couplings is too great. Also, conventional jumper cables are not of appropriate size. As a result, non in-line connectors, such as those with right-angle bends, have been developed (for example, see WO 2006/019515 A1). However, this right angle connector solution may not be compatible with all types of wall boxes and outlets.